McCracken, who coached three-time world super-middleweight champion, Carl Froch, throughout his 12-year professional career, will combine training Joshua with his role as Performance Director of Great Britain’s Olympic boxing programme.

Anthony Joshua said: “I have remained close to Rob and the GB Boxing squad since 2012. I have consistently turned to him for advice and guidance so I am really excited to have him in my corner, starting on December 10th. I would like to put on record my thanks to Tony Sims who will remain in my corner working with Rob as he did to such success with Carl Froch.”

Rob McCracken added: “Anthony is a special talent and I am looking forward to working with him on the next stage of his career as he looks to defend his titles and, ultimately, to unify the heavyweight division.

“I know from working with Carl Froch that combining my work coaching a top professional boxer with the role of Performance Director has mutual benefits and that having a world champion in the gym has a very positive impact on the whole of the GB Boxing squad. It gives the boxers an insight into what it takes to be the best in the world and provides top-class training opportunities that will help to develop and improve the heavyweight and super-heavyweight boxers in the squad.”

Since turning professional in July 2013, Joshua has retained close links with the Olympic boxing programme and returned to Sheffield on a number of occasions to work with the GB Boxing squad.

The opportunity to train with Joshua (who won gold at London 2012) has been a significant benefit to GB Boxing’s super-heavyweights and played a part in the success of Joe Joyce who won Olympic silver at Rio 2016.

Joshua will base his training camps at GB Boxing’s headquarters at the English Institute of Sport (EIS) in Sheffield in a repeat of the arrangement that GB Boxing and McCracken had with Carl Froch from 2010-2014 when he frequently trained alongside boxers from the Olympic programme.

The decision for McCracken to coach Joshua and allow the IBF world champion to train at the GB Boxing gym in Sheffield is supported by the board of GB Boxing. Joshua also has links to the UK’s high performance system through his role as an ambassador for UK Sport’s “#DiscoverYour Gold” talent identification campaign, which he helped to launch in July 2016.

A spokesperson for GB Boxing said: “We have maintained very good relations with Anthony and many of our former boxers, who occasionally come into the GB Boxing gym to work out with the squad.

“With Rob now coaching Anthony, the arrangement will be the same as the successful one we had previously with Carl Froch which provided world class preparation for our boxers. We have no doubt that having a world champion and Olympic gold medallist in the gym, from time to time, will enhance the world class performance programme and have a positive impact on the development of our boxers.”